Cathedrals: Lincoln & Ely
Lincoln Cathedral
I am writing this in the early hours of New Year’s Day 2022 and casting my mind back to a New Year’s celebration at the beginning of 1974. Apart from the unbelievable fact that it was 48 years ago, that night stands out in my memory for one particular reason. I was in Lincoln, with the St Andrews University Renaissance Group, at the beginning of my lifelong love affair with Lincoln Cathedral, one of the greatest buildings in the world, and we had taken over from the regular cathedral choir for the week over New Year. This allowed the choristers and lay clerks to have a short holiday, and permitted us, undergraduates, post-graduates, university academic staff and St Andrews worthies, to experience the day to day life of a great cathedral choir, especially that quintessentially English service, Choral Evensong.
My parents were both church-goers, and indeed my father was an elder in the Presbyterian Church of Scotland. I had gone to Sunday School and Youth Club, as well as Cubs and very briefly Scouts, but by January 1974 I had established clearly in my mind that I was an atheist and had no belief in a Higher Power guiding my life. I know that it was a source of concern to my parents, and they were ever hopeful that I would see the light and return to the fold. On the other hand, and I consider this a most enlightened position for believers to hold, they appreciated that I had thought long and hard about matters of faith and had come to my own decision, based on a rational approach, which they accepted.
Nonetheless, the experience of singing the Anglican liturgy in one of England’s biggest cathedrals came as a shock to me, and my initial reaction to our first couple of Evensongs was more that of an outraged Calvinist to quasi Popery, than a rational understanding of a different approach to worship in an environment in which I had no direct experience! I had never come across, nor indeed heard of, prose psalms, those central acts of musical worship in Anglican liturgy, in which the psalms of David from the Old Testament are chanted in four part harmony, using a system of phrasing laid down centuries before. Added to this completely new experience was my then inability to sight read music, and so it might be surmised that I hated every minute of the week.
Far from it! Mitigating factors were the pleasant surroundings and the comfortable accommodation provided in the choir school next to the cathedral, the decent food on offer, the proximity of several fine old pubs serving splendid beer, albeit of the flat and warm English variety, supposedly inimical to true Scots (I learned quickly), and the presence of a phalanx of delightfully nubile fellow choristers from St Andrews, all far from home and looking for a good time. I found out in a very short period of time that I could cope with the strange liturgical demands of an English cathedral, and settled into a very pleasant exploration of the wonders of Lincoln, which is both a delightful town and the location of one of the great wonders of mediaeval architecture.
Shortly after the Norman Conquest of England in 1066, Remigius de Fécamp, the first Bishop of Lincoln, started construction of a new cathedral in the old established city of Lincoln. Astonishingly, it was completed in 1092, but was mostly destroyed by an earthquake (almost unheard of in England) in 1185, and soon a new bishop, Hugh of Burgundy, began a new cathedral in the early English Gothic style. This commenced building in 1192, and was largely completed by the mid-13th century, with more additions, including the central tower, and the heightening of the western towers finished by 1311. The central tower was finished off with a lead-encased wooden spire which, until it blew down in a storm in 1548 (just the spire!), made Lincoln the tallest building in the world (525 ft/160 m), overtaking the Great Pyramid of Giza, which had held the record for 4,000 years!
This is essentially the building that we see today, and, for me, it is one of the greatest structures in the world, a magnificent memorial to man’s extraordinary ability to create. Indeed, to think it could be built at a time when modern techniques of construction were unknown, and all the work had to be done manually, is scarcely credible. As we will see over the course of this chapter, it was not even unique, and throughout western Europe, similar structures were being erected to the glory of God, in the simply astonishing flourishing of engineering skills which were the hallmark of the early and middle Mediaeval Period. As a graduate of Mediaeval History from St Andrews University (where another astounding cathedral was built around the same time), I hope you will indulge me as I try to describe some of the great buildings in which I have sung. It has been one of the joys of my career that I have been able to perform in so many of these magnificent cathedrals, buildings created in most cases as venues in which marvellous music could be played and sung.
My undergraduate experience of Lincoln at New Year 1973/74 was the first of many, and the chance to sing music like that of William Byrd, born in Lincoln in 1543, Thomas Tallis, John Taverner and Thomas Weelkes was formative in my career. Sadly, after that experience with the Renaissance Group, I sang Renaissance music rarely over the course of the last nearly 50 years, since, as an operatic soloist, my voice, even scaled down, was too big for choral or consort singing, but I have listened to others with pleasure, favourite groups being the Hilliard Ensemble, the Tallis Scholars, and recently (as reviewed at the Lammermuir Festival for EMR), the Gesualdo Six.
It was a great thrill for me a few years ago to return to Lincoln Cathedral to sing with the Lincoln Choral Society, in Bach’s Magnificat and his cantata ‘Wachet auf!’ To sing again in this iconic building was wonderful, and I was able to sing without thermal underwear. One of my abiding memories of 1973/74 was that the cathedral was unheated, the only warm place in the entire building being the little greenhouse-like hut for the vergers in the middle of the Crossing! Otherwise, it was several layers under our academic gowns, and remedial nips of whisky to get us through Evensong!
One of the great sights is when you walk towards the cathedral from the ancient Lincoln Castle, crossing the aptly named Steep Hill, lined with shops, pubs and restaurants, many dating back to the 12th century, and pass through Exchequer Gate. Rising unbelievably steeply before you is the West Front of the cathedral, with its great rose window. It seems to be so large that it takes your breath away, and, if you proceed into the church, the great nave continues into the distance, until you reach the magnificent Rood Screen in the Crossing under the central tower. Walking under the organ which sits in the Rood Screen, you emerge into the Choir, with its ancient choir stalls, carved with fantastic wooden misericords under the seat. The choir is split in two, Decani and Cantoris, with the choirmaster conducting in between. This allows at least two sets of four-part choirs, sometimes competing, sometimes combining. In most English cathedrals, including Lincoln, Decani is on the south side of the Chancel, where the Dean sits. On the other side, sits the Cantor, or Precentor, who typically begins the chant and is responsible for the incipits. The Precentor is a member of the Cathedral Chapter, second only to the Dean. In 1973/74, the incumbents of both roles were fascinating: the Dean was the Reverend Oliver Twisleton-Wykeham Fiennes, closely related to Sir Ranulph, the explorer, and more distantly to Ralph Fiennes, the actor. The Precentor was Canon David Rutter, a large man, who announced to us on the first day: “Some Precentors are fat; some Precentors sing flat. I am both fat and sing flat”. We all found this tremendously amusing, but Canon Rutter had enemies. On one occasion, the Dean remarked to the organist that he had been playing some rather modern atonal responses, and who was the composer? The organist replied that with one hand, he had been playing the Responses in the key sung by Canon Rutter, and with the other hand, the key chosen by the composer!
When Brandon Jackson replaced Oliver Fiennes as Dean in 1989, all Hell was let loose, and so began the War of Lincoln Cathedral. Dean Jackson did all he could to replace the unsackable David Rutter, without success, and tried to remove the Cathedral Treasurer as well. The new Dean was an Evangelical, far removed from his aristocratic predecessor, and had Margaret Thatcher’s ear too. The War went on for years as the Dean, as he put it, “chosen by Mrs Thatcher and God to purge the Cathedral of Corruption”, tried to pursue his goal. It ended with Canon Rutter’s death, and the resignation of both Dean and Treasurer, after a campaign of viciousness unparalleled in its ferocity.
None of this was obvious to us in 1973/74, but it’s a good story! There are two curiosities worth mentioning in Lincoln. One is that, because of a slight miscalculation, the roof of the nave doesn’t quite meet the west tower at the right spot. There is a tiny kink of a foot or so where the centre of the ceiling misses its exact mark. It’s not a disaster, as the ceiling has stayed in place for several hundred years, but you can imagine the early Middle English curses when the architect saw what had happened! Secondly, if you stand in the Choir to the east of the cathedral, and look up at the south side, you will find a tiny sculpture of a mischievous imp carved into the top of a column. Legend has it that the Devil sent a couple of imps down to England to cause mayhem. One found his way inside Lincoln Cathedral, and started to cause trouble all over, tripping up the Dean and buzzing other members of the Chapter. He was warned to desist but carried on his naughty pranks until the clergy lost patience, and he was turned into stone high up in the Choir. He has sat there ever since, as a warning!
Ely Cathedral
Not far to the south, in the middle of the flat Fen country, the cathedral of Ely soars above the surrounding area on its little knoll, dominating the region for miles around. Known as the ‘Ship of the Fens’, it started life as an Abbey in Anglo-Saxon times, but with the arrival of the Normans in 1066, it was rebuilt, still as a monastic community, beginning construction in 1081, in the Romanesque style. Awarded cathedral status in the 12th century, it was extended and developed in the early Gothic style, and the famous octagon tower at the Crossing was completed in 1334. After the collapse of the original Norman tower in 1322, it was decided to build a new octagonal central tower, constructed out of timber and richly decorated. It weighs 400 tons, achieves an internal height of 143 ft and is considered one of the Wonders of the Mediaeval World. In the 19th century, when the cathedral underwent considerable restoration, it was decided to paint the nave ceiling, and two incredible painters were commissioned to do the work. Henry Styleman Le Strange and Thomas Gambier Parry were the splendidly named artists, and their work depicting the story of the ancestry of Jesus, is a beautiful example of Victorian ceiling painting.
I only sang once in Ely, but it holds a special place in Bannatyne-Scott family history as the catalyst for our children’s arrival in this world. I was in the middle of a tour of Wagner’s ‘Ring Cycle’ when the First Gulf War broke out in 1991. We were living in London, and I became depressed by world affairs, so, one free day in January, I decided to drive up to Ely to clear my mind. There had been a light snowfall, and the cathedral and its environs were looking wonderful. After strolling round the church, I had lunch in a delightful local restaurant, and observed lots of families delivering their children back to the Cathedral choir school after the Christmas holidays. The combination of this beautiful cathedral and the excitement of young families looking forward to the new year, sparked a hitherto hidden desire to be part of this hopeful future, and I drove back to London, full of warmth and optimism. The wondrous arrival of Donald in November of that year, followed by Kat two years later, vindicated that decision made in Ely!
In the next chapter, I will look at York Minster and Durham Cathedral, two magnificent northern English buildings in which I have sung.
